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Somewhat human

Seems like it would be wise to define (in another thread) what constitutes as proof, if it weren't for the fact that there'd be no proof our agreed on proof definition is actually proof of what proof is.

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...

New research suggests Flight MH370 crashed a long way from the areas searched to date.

It's a complicated story. This research was based on oceanic sound monitors, it spawned secondary work to determine what sort of sound effects an airliner crashing into the water would cause, its results are tentative and tenuous, and the crash area they suggest is controversial.

Ocean Microphones May Have Recorded Lost Malaysian Jet's Crash … Thousands of Miles from Search Sites

Nearly five years ago, the doomed Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished without a trace, with 239 people on board. The search in the Indian Ocean for the wreckage of the aircraft has been the largest and most expensive search effort in history — but it has turned up nothing.

Now, a team of researchers says Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may have crashed thousands of miles from the search locations, based on sounds recorded in the ocean near the time the passenger jet disappeared on March 8, 2014.

In research published Jan. 29 in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, applied mathematician Usama Kadri said underwater microphones in the Indian Ocean had recorded four distinctive sound events, caused by very low-frequency acoustic-gravity waves, around the time that Flight 370 could have crashed into the sea.

His research showed that one of those sound events happened relatively close to the search area — but two others are thousands of miles away, in the northern part of the Indian Ocean, somewhere between Madagascar and the atoll of Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, Kadri told Live Science. ...

Kadri and colleagues at the University of Cardiff in the U.K. and Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada analyzed sounds recorded by a network of underwater microphones (called hydrophones), which are maintained by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) to listen for banned nuclear tests.

The CTBTO hydrophones give directional bearings, loudness and frequencies of sounds in the ocean, from which scientists can calculate an approximate location for where those sounds originated. ...

As well as two matching sound events recorded by the CTBTO hydrophones at Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia, the researchers found two sound events recorded by the hydrophones at Diego Garcia that could match the sounds of an airliner hitting the ocean.

Their directional bearings and timings indicated that they both occurred somewhere northwest of Madagascar — thousands of miles from the areas where searchers have looked for wreckage of the aircraft.

But the ocean is a noisy place, and Kadri said the underwater sounds might have also been caused by underwater earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, or even by meteorites or space junk falling in the ocean. ...

However, they were also valid sound signals that could have been created by the crash of Flight 370, he said.

Kadri said he recognized that the sound events near Madagascar were thousands of miles from the so-called "7th arc" — the line of possible positions of Flight 370 calculated from the aircraft's final radio signals to a tracking satellite shortly before it would have run out of fuel. ...

But Kadri said the positions suggested by the satellite radio data might be inaccurate, or calculated incorrectly, or otherwise misleading. ...

Details of the new research had been relayed to the Malaysian and Australian authorities responsible for locating the aircraft, but there are currently no plans to resume the search at sea, Kadri said.

Other experts on the search for the crash site of Flight 370 gave divided opinions about the new research.

David Griffin, an oceanographer at the Australian government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), told Live Science that he could think of no reason why the 7th-arc satellite data should be disregarded.

Griffin also estimated that crash sites near Madagascar and Diego Garcia would result in floating debris along the East African coast within a few months — in other words, by mid-2014.

But no floating debris from the crash was found there until late 2015 and 2016, around 18 months later, he said.

However, oceanographer David Gallo, the director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, said he was not convinced that the satellite data represented by the 7th arc gave an accurate indication of the final positions of Flight 370.

Gallo ... said the Australian-led searches for Flight 370 had relied on the 7th-arc data because they needed to respond quickly.

But "I'm not now nor ever was a fan of the 7th arc," Gallo told Live Science in an email: "[The] plane could very well have crashed north of Madagascar."

Justified & Ancient

Martin Dolan, the man in charge of the two-year Australian search, lays out his various hypotheses for what may have happened – sensible, rational theories based on admittedly quite slim evidence. No hyperbole, no pandering to red-top nonsense. He's convinced that the evidence will be found at some point, though accepts it may not be during his lifetime.

King-Sized Canary

There was one pilot-assisted suicide in Europe around the same time, so it's not outwith possibility. Number 4 on his list is maybe even more plausible, I'd say, and bodes ill for transport in the future, including driverless cars.

That is an excellent article. It's not terribly long for an in-depth piece by William Langewiesche. I love his articles because they are lucid, interesting, and very thoroughly researched. That combination is not getting any easier to find.

Anyway, I followed the story pretty closely for the first few months, as I had a lot of time on my hands right then and it was such a puzzling mystery. As I recall, when the FBI studied the captain's computer and then gave it back to the Malaysian authorities, it was said that nothing in the way of incriminating evidence was found on it. According to this story, that was anything but the truth. It's astounding that the guy ran a simulation of a very improbable flight numerous times, which turned out to closely resemble the actual path the plane apparently took, and the FBI made no public comment on the matter. Unfortunately, that is not the only serious breach of sanity in this amazing story. Far from it!

I knew the job was dangerous when I took it ...

Just for the record ... The former Malaysian PM has clarified that the pilot-suicide theory was never dismissed, but simply never publicly promoted.

Malaysia never ruled out 'murder-suicide plot' by MH370 pilot, says former PM Najib

Malaysia has never ruled out the possibility that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could have been downed by a suicidal pilot, the country’s former prime minister Najib Razak said on Wednesday.

Najib, who was premier when MH370 vanished with 239 people on board nearly six years ago, was responding to remarks by former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott that Malaysian leaders had considered from the outset that flight captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah may have committed mass murder.

“My very clear understanding from the very top levels of the Malaysian government is that from very, very early on here, they thought it was a murder-suicide by the pilot,” Abbott said in a clip from a Sky News documentary on the tragedy airing Wednesday.

Najib told online news portal Free Malaysia Today that Malaysian officials had considered such a scenario during their investigation but had chosen not to make their views public.

“It would have been deemed unfair and legally irresponsible since the black boxes and cockpit voice recorders had not been found and hence, there was no conclusive proof whether the pilot was solely or jointly responsible,” Najib was quoted as saying. ...

Junior Acolyte

what if the 89kg cargo was drugs or something? maybe the plane landed somewhere else? or maybe it just crashed in the ocean because of a freak accident? like a fault in the engines, you know, good old fashioned bad luck.

Public Service is my Motto.

what if the 89kg cargo was drugs or something? maybe the plane landed somewhere else? or maybe it just crashed in the ocean because of a freak accident? like a fault in the engines, you know, good old fashioned bad luck. it's quite hard to hide a plane of that size no?

The fact that pieces of MH370 washed up on the African coast of the Indian ocean is a pretty good indicator of its present location. Not such a good indicator of precisely what happened, or where *exactly* it is presently resting, but I think we know that it crashed into the ocean with 99.99% probability.

Never give up, never surrender

what if the 89kg cargo was drugs or something? maybe the plane landed somewhere else? or maybe it just crashed in the ocean because of a freak accident? like a fault in the engines, you know, good old fashioned bad luck.

I believe the most likely explanation is pilot suicide. The specific actions taken by the plane seem to preclude action by anyone lacking a detailed technical knowledge of that type of plane, plus the Captain, as mentioned above, had simulated very similar flights to the course the actual airliner took. Of course the jury is still out, as it were, but I was convinced by the Air Crash Investigation episode on this flight. It used to be on YouTube but its been removed.

I've found ACI to be a very serious programme, and its previously cured me of one or two conspiracy theories I was lightly entertaining.

Disciple of Marduk

Pilot suicide seemed plausible to me from the start because the plane seemed to have disappeared so suddenly and completely. Nobody had a clue what had happened to it and as time went on, no evidence appeared.

As they say, two people can keep a secret if one is dead! That certainly applies to a pilot who'd quietly decided to kill himself and take others with him.

It was like that when I got here.........honest!!!

Where is the majority of the wreckage anyway? Surely (assuming it crashed into the sea) there must have been loads of floating debris? Y'know, cushions, clothing, bits of seat foam, paraphernalia like bottles etc with the logo of the airline on them etc etc? Something other than a couple of bits of partly identifiable wing should be somewhere? I mean, is someone going to rock up onto a deserted island somewhere at some point and find loads of stuff that's been carried there by the ocean currents? Or if the plane crashed into the land then surely at some point someone is going to stumble across the crash site?

Emperor of Antarctica

By all credible indications, the plane went down in the middle of the Indian Ocean, which is vast. Most of the wreckage would not float, or at least not for long. Actually, I'm surprised at how much of it has been found and identified. Another complicating factor is the amount of debris from who knows where in the ocean. All sorts of odd bits or airplanes was found in the weeks after the disappearance, but turned out to be from some other airplane.

It was like that when I got here.........honest!!!

Yes, I'm 54, not 14, I know how big the Indian Ocean is, but thanks for trying to enlighten me.
I still reckon that there should be considerable flotsam that has made landfall in various places around the world, ocean currents being what they are, and at some point something significant will be found.

Public Service is my Motto.

Yes, I'm 54, not 14, I know how big the Indian Ocean is, but thanks for trying to enlighten me. I still reckon that there should be considerable flotsam that has made landfall in various places around the world, ocean currents being what they are, and at some point something significant will be found.

You would be correct. I saw a map that has most of the debris (12 of 13 pieces) washing up on Reunion island, Madagascar and Eastern Africa, but one piece washing up in southern Australia. I'd say that confirms it is in the Indian ocean somewhere, but as to the condition, well... The term "shredded" springs to mind.